The sorting and routing of mail which may include mail from sources outside private and/or governmental installations received from the postal service and internal correspondence (hereinafter, collectively, "correspondence") to the proper addressee or location has posed a problem which becomes increasingly acute as that installation increases in size. Typically, correspondence is received at a single location, at which the function of sorting and routing is carried out to locate each individual piece of correspondence to a bag, pouch or other form of receptacle. The manner by which the individual pieces of correspondence are sorted and routed for delivery to the addressee or location may include operations calling for total manual capability, both manual and automatic capability, and a total automatic capability. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 1,322,356 to Samuel Olsen, correspondence may be located manually to any one of several pockets in a desk at one location to be retained at least temporarily or to move automatically from the pocket through a chute to a conveyor and, finally to a downstream location. U.S. Pat. No. 1,219,067 to Charles H. H. Bailey et al discloses apparatus comprising a plurality of chutes, each chute having a plurality of individual routing channels, communicating a sorting location and a location to which respective correspondence is to be routed. U.S. Pat. No. 1,851,958 to Robert Hill discloses an apparatus substantially similar in operation to that of Bailey and Olsen.
Each of the aforementioned patents, while they disclose a form of routing system, all suffer from a problem of collection of correspondence at a discharge location. To this end, none of the prior art systems disclose the use of a collection device which may be readily located to a position below a pair of conveyor paths, or a device having convertible capability of use in the support either of a box or one or a pair of bags for collection of correspondence from each conveyor path.